[36] Elsewhere Mr. Ruskin speaks of "Twickenham classicism" (with
a side allusion, of course, to Pope) "consisting principally in
conceptions of ancient or of rural life such as have influenced the
erection of most of our suburban villas" (_Pre-Raphaelitism_, reprinted
in _On the Old Road_, i. 283).
[37] In a later lecture on landscape (delivered at Oxford and reported
in Cook's _Studies in Ruskin_, p. 290) Ruskin cited Evelyn (who was
nearly contemporary with Claude) as another case in point: "We passed
through a forest (of Fontainebleau)," says Evelyn, "so prodigiously
encompass'd with hideous rocks of white hard stone, heaped one on
another in mountainous height, that I think the like is nowhere to be
found more horrid and solitary." It is interesting to note how long
this ignorance of mountains lasted, even amongst painters. James Barry,
the R. A., was "amazed at finding the realities of the Alps grander
than the imaginations of Salvator," and writes to Edmund Burke from
Turin in 1766 to say that he saw the moon from the Mont Cenis five
times as big as usual, "from being so much nearer to it"!